


The Lonely House

by sidleupandsmile



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hale Family Feels, flashbacks ahoy, i have a lot of laura feels, you can never go home again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2013-04-12
Packaged: 2017-12-08 07:23:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/758654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidleupandsmile/pseuds/sidleupandsmile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say you can never go home again.  Laura should have listened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lonely House

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from an Emily Dickenson poem that's particularly relevant to this fic's interests. My thanks to bookishbeth for always encouraging me and making me a better writer.

She’d promised she’d never come back here.  The life she’d lived here was dead and gone and the only thing you could do with the dead was to leave them in peace.  She stood in front of what was once her home and she tried to feel nothing.  She told herself she felt nothing.  

Laura had always been good at lying to herself.  She couldn’t distance herself from the burnt husk of her family home even if it was the only thing she was able to dedicate her energy to.  The only thing really keeping her together as her knees weakened the more that charred smell combined with the hints of what used to be her family burned its way up her nose was that Derek was safe.  He wasn’t anywhere near this place and he was safe.   

_“I’ll be fine, Derek,” she’d said, throwing some clothes haphazardly into a bag.  He was scowling at her from the doorway, arms crossed over his chest in a way that very clearly said ‘you are full of bullshit and I don’t believe you for a second’.  But there were perks to being the Alpha of their tiny little broken pack and one of them was when she said he was going to stay here and keep an eye on their tiny little four block territory, he would have to listen to her.  Plus, someone had to keep an eye on her car in this neighborhood._

_“I’m only going to be gone for the weekend and I’ll be back on Monday, okay?  Just stay here and make sure no one does anything stupid while I’m gone,” she’d continued.  She’d said she had to deal with some insurance paperwork from the fire, a story which was plausible at least.  They’d been fighting with the insurance companies on the last bit of money they were owed for almost a year.  “I’ll be back before you know it.  I’ll call when I get there, okay?” she finished, throwing the strap of the bag over her shoulder after she zipped it up.  He took a step back when she went to hug him, still glaring at her, although there was no real heat in it.  He couldn’t have known this would have been his last chance._  

She walked slowly through the house, the floorboard creaking in ways that it had never done before, unnatural and loud in the silence of the now overgrown trees that surrounded the property, hanging over the room providing shade from the moon where the roof used to be.  The dust had been disturbed, someone, or something, had been through here, and recently, given the way it had settled around the voids.   _Shit_ , she thought.   _I don’t know how to deal with this_.  Laura had never expected to be the Alpha and she certainly hadn’t expected to lose almost everything in one day.  She hadn’t been trained for this.  

_Derek was quiet where he was pressed into her side, arms wrapped tight around her middle like she’d disappear if he even thought about letting go.  One of her hands stroked through his hair, trying to calm him down because he might have been quiet but his heart was beating like a rabbit’s.  The Sheriff had given her a cup with tea in it an hour ago and it had gone cold in her hand as she’d stared through the window in front of her at nothing.  Her family was dead, Uncle Peter might has well have been and she...she was Alpha.  Why...she didn’t understand any of this.  It should have gone to Peter, he wasn’t a direct descendent in the line, but he was older, he was wiser, he was more experienced.  He was...well, he wasn’t an 18 year old girl who didn’t even known how to pay taxes.  She didn’t know anything about this.  The line was supposed to go through her older cousin on her mom’s side.  He’d been 28 and been raised for this.  She was just...this wasn’t what was supposed to happen.  “What’s gonna happen to us?,” Derek had asked, and all she’d been able to answer him with was a shake of her head and some silent tears running down her face._

Her train of thought was disturbed by a flash of movement to her left, just outside the window.  If this ended up being some kids from town, there was going to be hell to pay.  She didn’t see anything once she stepped outside, but the grass was pressed down like someone had been walking on it, and it was easy enough to follow the trail in the moonlight.  Laura didn’t say anything, not wanting to scare whatever it was away if it really was just some innocent kid playing around the Hale house (probably on a dare) or alert it to her presence if it wasn’t.   

Her brow furrowed in confusion when she saw someone standing in the middle of the woods in what looked like a bathrobe and slippers.  That...wasn’t at all what she’d expected.  She walked towards whoever it was slowly, cautious but now thinking that whoever it was probably was confused.  The smell, though.  It was... 

...Peter?  How...he’d been in the hospital this morning, unresponsive.  There was no way he was actually here.  “Peter?” she called out hesitantly.  “Are you okay?”

She didn’t even have time to react, not really, before he was turning and his claws were sunk into her abdomen.  She fell to her knees as the pain hit but then instinct kicked in and she fought back.  She snarled at him, grabbing at his hand where it was pressed against her skin, her own claws tearing at his hand, their mixed blood spilling over both of their flesh.  Something was very wrong, however, and with unnatural strength he shouldn't have had, he twisted his grip and pulled, and she fell onto her back as she tried to keep her organs inside her body.   

“I’m sorry, Laura,” he said, standing over her with her blood dripping onto her shirt from his clawed fingers.  “But you weren’t moving fast enough.”  

‘I don’t understand.  Fast enough for what?,’ she wanted to ask but her mouth wasn’t moving like she wanted it to, her vision going fuzzy.  ‘Uncle Peter, why?’ came next as she watched him smile down at her, a rictus grin on his face.   

Finally, her thoughts turned to what family she had left, who she’d been leaving behind, because she understood that she was going to die here on the forest floor.  ‘Derek.  He can’t have Derek.  Derek has to stay away.’  It was her last thought before everything faded and the light dimmed from her eyes.  

_The first thing she’d done with the first round of insurance money they’d gotten was to buy a new car.  If they were moving across the country (get out, have to get out, out of Beacon Hills, out of California, out of this place, out, no more fire, no more smoke, no more broken pitying stares from everyone in town), they were going to do it right.  New car for a new life.  “Do you think we’ll ever come back here, Laura?” Derek had asked her, his eyes sad as he watched the ‘Welcome to Beacon Hills’ sign fade in the side mirror._

_“We’re never coming back here.  That place...all it brings us is death,” she’d replied.  Derek had nodded and leaned his head back, letting the sounds of CCR wash over him, their dad’s favorite._

  
She hadn't meant to be so right about it.


End file.
